


someone i used to know

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Angry Kissing, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Psyqualia Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 08:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16237805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: The only good thing Kai Toshiki ever did for himself was to walk away from Suzugamori Ren. That doesn't mean it was easy, or that Ren would ever find it in him to forgive Kai.





	someone i used to know

He feels Ren before he hears him, that tangible aura of chaos that he never wanted to feel again yet can't seem to escape.

No one else is there; there's a cardfight going on and everyone is watching. There's no point in yelling out when Ren grabs him by the back of his collar and shoves his back into the wall. Ren wants him to react. He won't give him even that much.

"Did you miss me, Kai?" Ren's hand pins Kai to the wall by his neck. It's tight enough to be firm but not so much that it chokes him.

"Let go." Kai's voice, mercifully, radiates indifference.

Truthfully, he's terrified of the hungry look in Ren's eyes, as if Kai were a delicious treat that Ren couldn't wait to devour.

Ren knows. Kai can tell by the creeping smiling on Ren's face. "Let you go? After I've been searching for you for so long?"

"I don't want you anywhere near me."

The manic grin vanishes in an instant. Kai can't stop himself from flinching as Ren's hand around his throat tightens. He can still breathe, but it hurts now.

"You _abandoned_ me," Ren hisses, face nearly touching Kai's. His spit flicks onto Kai's cheek. "When I needed you the most, you left me alone."

"You didn't need _me_ ," Kai retorts, reaching up to grab Ren's hand, to loosen the stranglehold around his windpipe. "You needed _it,_ like some kind of drug. _I_ was just your fix."

Ren releases Kai's throat, but Kai doesn't dare move. Ren is still nearly pressed up against him, staring into Kai's face with such intensity that Kai has to avert his eyes. "We need each other. Your life meant nothing before me."

There was some truth to this. Life was lonely, unsatisfying, almost not worth living before he met Ren. Ren's pushiness, passion, determination, even his quirkiness and often bizarre behaviors brought peace to Kai's isolated life.

What they shared back then, Kai had never thought could be surpassed. The happiness. The feeling that Vanguard could again be something more than a means to fill the void in his life. That Vanguard could be _fun_.

But Ren gave in to his passions, more and more and more each day until time with him was no longer time worth spending.

Time had passed, and with it came Sendou Aichi.

"Not anymore."

Ren grips the front of Kai's jacket, pushing him harder into the wall. This response was what Kai expected. If there was any leverage he still had, it was over Ren's insatiable desire to be at the top. Of Vanguard, of business, of Kai's attention.

"What can Q4 _possibly_ give you that I can't?"

Kai's lack of a response infuriated Ren less than Kai trying to tug himself out of Ren's grasp. Ren's fingers tighten, taking in fistfuls of Kai's shirt, and some of the skin beneath.

When Ren speaks next, his voice is low, almost inaudible. "What can Sendou Aichi do to satisfy you that I can't?"

Kai is selfish, and always has been. He knows how Ren will react and he knows, more than anything, that what he wants to say, what he _burns_ to say, will elicit a reaction from Ren that he shouldn't even _want_. But the strongest part of himself thinks back on simpler times, when Ren scrunched up his face and kissed him, those awkward junior high days where neither knew or understood what they felt, understood love or relationships or feelings in general, but they understood Vanguard, and it brought them closer together physically even while tearing apart their hearts.

"Aichi," Kai says, matching Ren's low tone, "is passionate in ways you could barely imagine."

Ren might think himself in control, but Kai has goaded him into kissing him. No, not quite a kiss; Ren's mouth tears hungrily at Kai's, teeth tearing into Kai's lips so hard Kai bleeds, but Kai stands unmoving but for his own mouth moving to match Ren's. Fingernails dig into Kai's jaw as Ren pries open Kai's mouth and Kai lets him taste him, taste the three-hour-old coffee lingering from breakfast, lets him run his tongue over Kai's teeth--

Kai tears free at last, curiosity sated.

For all the lust and power in the kiss, the passion is gone, replaced by pure hatred. There's nothing left there of the Ren he once knew.

Ren breathes heavily but makes no effort to stop Kai shoving his hands away and turning to leave. ""I'll tear him apart, Kai Toshiki. I will destroy Sendou Aichi and prove to you that I was the only one good enough for you all along."

Kai stops walking but doesn't turn around. "He isn't involved in any of this. This is between me and you."

"I'll leave him alone," Ren says breathlessly, "if you leave him first and come back to me. If you simply apologize, I'll take you back."

Kai shouldn't say anything, shouldn't even react. But the past ten minutes have been nothing but shouldn'ts that Kai did anyway, so he turns back to Ren and makes eye contact. With exaggerated deliberateness, he spits on the floor before lifting his hand and wiping the back of it over his mouth. It comes away bloody.

Then he walks away, one more time, from the first boy he ever thought he loved.


End file.
